“Hah, hah!” laughed Joe, “that puts me in mind of old Ben Thomson last feast. When he threw up his hat on the stage, he said he could get his pint of beer any day for tuppence, but it wasn’t every day as he could get his pint of beer and a broken head too for the same money.”
“Oh, but Mr. Warton—” broke in Miss Lucy.
“Now, you were not to say a word, you know,” said he.
“But Joe began, Sir.”
“Joseph, hold your tongue.”
“Very well, Sir,” said Joe, grinning.
“Then we come to this,” said he to me, “a man must have just the same qualities to win at backsword as to win a race; and something else besides, which is good in itself?”
“But, Sir,” said I, “that doesn’t meet the point. What I say is, that backsword is a game in which men are sure to lose their tempers and become brutal.”
“But don’t they sometimes lose their tempers in races?” said he.